Portland, Oregon's "African-American Baseline Essays," widely used in creating multicultural curricula, inaccurately depicts ancient Egyptians as black people and Olmec civilization as derived from African influences. The authors advance racial theories long abandoned by mainline Africa scholars, attribute mystical powers to pyramids,…

Reports findings from a study of the confidence expressed by ministry-level decision makers in five developing countries (i.e., Somalia, Botswana, Liberia, Yemen, and Nepal) about the quality of the national-level education data available to them and reasons for the perceived 16-40 percent error rate. (DMM)

Data from several studies indicated that most children understood what they were asked to do in psychological studies. Few under the age of 12 years believed their performance would be confidential. Many children believed there would be negative consequences if they ended their participation. Parental permission added pressure on children to…

This paper argues that behavior analysis is not technological to a fault, but rather has a faulty technology by being incomplete. The paper examines reinforcers and punishers that result from the outcomes of either (1) striving for better experimental control, or (2) inventing theories to explain why current control is imperfect. (JDD)

Notes inconsistencies in drug abuse prevention research findings related to such issues as study design and methodology. Presents consensus recommendations made by drug abuse prevention researchers and practitioners who met at National Institute on Drug Abuse in 1989. Includes specific recommendations directed to modifying prevention approaches;…

This paper summarizes results of a survey of 256,000 individuals in Spain which sought to identify those individuals with impairments, disabilities, and handicaps. The paper also examines the usefulness of the World Health Organization's classification. Results are discussed in terms of prevalence of disability, age, sex, common impairments,…

Reviews social-work research concerning the differences between rural and urban practice, how rural social workers feel about their practice, and what needs to be taught in professional social-work schools. Suggests a more useful agenda for social-work research. Describes a West Virginia study that identified the research interests of the human…

Describes a researcher's efforts to study how electronic communities function. Offers guidelines for citing electronic mail in investigations of electronic interactions. (RS)

Defines and explores the links among intellectual, social, and cultural history. Warns that an adequate foundation must be laid in the economic and institutional social history of mass media before communication historians jump into cultural history. (SR)

Reports on measures of marital success based both on rates of divorce and separation and on the quality of intact marriages constructed from U.S. national survey data gathered over the 15-year period from 1973 to 1988. Concludes that the probability of ever-married persons attaining and maintaining marital success dropped in the past few years.…

Challenges the increasingly comfortable relationship between cultural studies and communication, in which cultural studies has compromised itself by remaking itself within the image of communication studies. Advocates a cultural studies built on the concept of articulation. (SR)

Pitfalls of sloppy science are discussed as they relate to the evaluation of human services programs. Differences between trial-and-error methods and the scientific method are discussed; and the requirements for sound research are reviewed, as are the shortcomings of a less rigorous approach. (SLD)

A past president of the Comparative and International Education Society discusses increases in comparative education research and international cooperative educational projects; the unreliability of educational statistics worldwide; "paradigm wars" and other sources of intellectual gridlock in the university-based research community; and…

Presents an attempt to cross-validate a widely used set of standard credibility scales. Finds that the Meyer modification of the Gaziano-McGrath scales appears to validly and reliably measure credibility per se but that a second set of scales posited to measure community affiliation is not sufficiently reliable in its current form for use without…

In 1992, the Current Population Survey changed the question regarding educational attainment to ask for highest level completed and offers more possible responses. The old format tended to misclassify years of schooling, made it impossible to identify specific degrees, and led to uncertainty in high school graduate classification. (JOW)